Ty Newcomb (@eye.of.ty) is a 31-year-old professional travel and brand photographer based out of Boulder, Colorado. He’s been working as a professional photographer for over eight years now and has made a living working with tourism boards, travel agencies, hotels and other travel companies on location around the world. He’s also partnered with some of the biggest consumer brands on the planet including Nike, Expedia, Land Rover, Nissan and dozens more. Newcomb’s work has been featured in magazines, new articles, billboards and television ads. We saw the image below on his Instagram and were fascinated by the technique he used as well as how he created tension within a frame. Newcomb is a Sony shooter who used his Alpha 7R IV  and 100-400mm G Master to make the image. Keep reading as he shares the story behind the shot in his own words.

Product Preview – In This Article You’ll Find:
–Sony Alpha 7R IV
–Sony 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G Master

Photo by Ty Newcomb. Sony Alpha 7R IV. Sony 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G Master. 30-sec., f/18, ISO 100

The Scene

For this photo in particular, this was shot in Los Angeles on Park Row Drive Bridge. I was traveling for a tourism job nearby in Ventura and decided to make a stop in LA to shoot a bit for myself as I had not shot much around the city of LA. After meeting up with some friends and making a few new ones at other locations from that night, I went with this shot as well as a few others and sat for a while and waited until after sunset in order to capture the light trails on the highway from passing cars. During this night I was also able to capture some awesome shots overlooking downtown LA and this was the last location of the day to wrap my trip up. 

Light Trails On The Road & In The Sky

I shot this with my Sony Alpha 7R IV with the Sony 100-400mm f/4.5–5.6 G Master lens as well as a 3 Legged Thing CF Tripod. I selected the Sony Alpha 7R IV due to the large offering of megapixels, quality of detail, and low light capabilities. Having such a large array of megapixels allows me to crop into a photo far beyond what I normally would be able to do with a lower resolution camera while still maintaining the detail and sharpness of the photo.

The 100-400 is also by far my favorite lens in my arsenal because of the sharpness it offers even when fully punched in and the ability to compress scenes unlike any other lens I have. Not to mention, it has decent low light capabilities which allows me to shoot well into the night with it. I've even set it up on a star tracker and have zoomed all the way in at 400mm with it to capture the Orion nebula and Andromeda galaxy with stunning clarity that many think is only achievable with a telescope, which you can see in the posts below.

Also, one of the best parts of using such a versatile telephoto lens such as the 100-400 is being able to zoom in and compress the scene and particularly background objects and is a technique I utilize a lot in my photography to give the illusion that objects in the distance are much closer in relation to the middle and foreground subjects to create a composition that is only achievable through compression with a lens like this. 

I took this shot with a 30-second exposure at f/18 at ISO 100 to keep the noise to a minimum and to maximize the light trails from the cars on the highway below. I positioned myself on the overpass bridge above the highway on Park Row Drive and placed my tripod so that it was centered between the lanes of traffic below. I then shot on the intervalometer mode so that I could later choose the frame with the most coverage by the lights and to allow me to stack frames as necessary.

A Dreamy Juxtaposition: Creating Tension Between Nature & City

For this edit I wanted to create something dreamy and a juxtaposition between the city and nature and the sky above as well as highlight the bustling activity of the city. I chose to edit this by dropping the shadows and clipping the blacks a bit, while also boosting the lights and dropping the highlights so that they wouldn't blow out the frame with brightness. I then did a sky swap using a frame of star trails I had shot earlier and stacked into a circular frame using photoshop. I then blended the scene together with color balance and did a final edit in Lightroom to make the scene a little more ethereal looking.

See more of Ty Newcomb’s work on Instagram @eye.of.ty.